Barnados Campaign

Barnardos profits from the detention and deportation of
children and families. It is under contract to provide
services at "Cedars" - an immigration detention centre
run by the notorious G4S, a violent security company
whose guards killed the Angolan asylum seeker Jimmy
Mubenga on a BA flight from Heathrow.

We don't believe adult migrants should be detained or deported, but the impact on
children is even worse. In 'State Sponsored Cruelty', a 2010 report by Medical
Justice, 74 out of 141 detained children surveyed had been 'psychologically harmed'
by detention, resulting in food refusal, development regression and suicidal behaviour.
48% were born in the UK, and were at risk of deportation to a country they had
never even visited. Al Aynsley Green, ex-Children's Commissioner for England said
"Detention is harmful to children and therefore never likely to be their best interests".

This pressure led to the government promising to end child detention. But, with
Barnardos giving them cover by promising to ensure that child detention was done in
a humane way (clue: we don't think this is possible), they instead went ahead with
Cedars detention centre.

In July last year, Barnardo's set 'red lines' for its involvement in the pilot scheme. The
conditions included withdrawing services if more than 10 percent of the families
deported in the first year of the trial went through the centre; if any family has stayed
at the centre more than once or for longer than the one week maximum; or if
disproportionate force is used with a family on route to or from the centre.

Campaigners say many of these conditions have been breached repeatedly but
Barnardo's is 'simply ignoring' that and refusing to listen to anyone. Many families
have reported suffering from trauma and being subjected to verbal abuse & physical
assaults by the security guards. At least one family is known to have been held at the
centre for over one week. An investigation by the UKBA's Professional Standards
Unit into allegations surrounding the actions of Reliance security guards found that
inappropriate force had been used in the case of one individual deported from
Cedars. Instead of pulling out as they promised, Barnardos simply raised concerns
formally with the relevant Government Minister, and carried on as before.